I woke up this morning and you know what? I was kinda sad. You see, Richard Pryor would have turned 71 years old today, which coincidently is the same age as Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee, had he lived. And then I sat back and realized that Clint Eastwood is now 81. And John Rambo himself? Sylvester Stallone? 65 years old. The Last Action Hero? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Is 64. So that got me to thinking... who are today's tough guys? Who are today's action heroes? Jason Statham? Please, the guy is a one trick pony. The Rock? Yeah, whenever his Disney contract is up. What that means is young kids today are screwed. They have no tough guys to look up to, and aside from a few comedians who aren't good for anything but the occasional celebrity roast, nobody that's truly funny. I remember watching Richard Pryor and Scott Schwartz in The Toy -- that's the same kid who stuck his tongue to a frozen pole in A Christmas Story, by the way. I would have thought he'd make the list of the most obnoxious child stars of the 80s, but I guess not.

The term prone means to lie on bed or ground in a position with chest downwards and back upwards. In competitive shooting, the prone position is the position of a shooter lying face down on the ground. It is considered the easiest and most accurate position as the ground provides extra stability. It is the starting position in three positions events. Many video games (particularly first-person shooters) allow the player character to go into the prone position.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a used Marlin 60 with a 4x scope for $120. Just something cheap to plink with and since it was made in 1978, it wasn't one of the neutered ones that are on the market now, courtesy of the great state of New Jersey. So I pick up the rifle, give it a good cleaning and head off to the range to try it out. Slize some dozen and a half little .22LR's down the tube magazine, cock it, aim and.... Click. No boom. Huh. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Recock it, ejecting the unused round, and give it another whirl. Boom! Excellent. Next shot? Click. And then Click again on the next shot. And the next, and the next. There was the occassional Boom mixed in this little Click party, but not many. And it wasn't the ammunition, of the gas system failing to cycle the action, it felt more like the trigger wasn't resetting. Each time I pulled the trigger on a Click, I could feel the trigger barely, barely, barely scraping against something that (I presume) it was supposed to make better contact with. So with a scant 15 shots fired out of a box of 100, I headed back home with somewhat of a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Harry Morgan, born Harry Bratsberg, is widely recognized as Officer Bill Gannon, Joe Friday's partner in the revived version of Dragnet. Morgan's first appearance on M*A*S*H was in the show's third season, when he played spaced-out Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele ("That's three e's, not all in a row!") in "The General Flipped at Dawn", which originally aired on September 10, 1974. Steele is convinced that the 4077th needs to move closer to the front line, to be near the action. Morgan's memorable Emmy-nominated performance impressed the producers of the show. The following season, Morgan joined the cast of M*A*S*H as Colonel Sherman T. Potter. Morgan replaced McLean Stevenson, who had left the show at the end of the previous season. Col. Potter is a career army officer who is tough, yet good-humored and caring—a father figure to the people under his command. The picture of Potter's wife, on the right side of his desk, is actually that of Eileen Detchon, Morgan's real-life wife at the time. He asked if he could use her picture, and the producers had no objections. In 1980, Morgan won an Emmy award for his performance on M*A*S*H. After the end of the series, Morgan reprised the Potter role in a short-lived spinoff series, AfterMASH. In 1987, Morgan reprised his Bill Gannon character, now a captain, for a supporting role in another film version of Dragnet, a parody of the original series written by and starring Dan Aykroyd and co-starring Tom Hanks and Christopher Plummer. In 2006, Morgan was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Morgan died on December 7, 2011 at the age of 96. On confirming his death, his son Charles said that he had been recently treated for pneumonia. So long Colonel Potter, we hardly knew ye. But you sure as hell made me laugh.

While everyone is pissing and moaning about how American Airlines treated Alec Baldwin -- brilliant actor, but also a raging conceited asshole -- let us not forget that American Airlines has -- despite their financial troubles -- again stepped up to the plate to be the "Official Airline of Snowball Express". They've donated six aircraft for charter purposes and aAll pilots and flight attendants donated their time to spend the weekend with the families. American Airline employees spent thousands of man hours donating their time to make these 5 days and these charters something for these children of fallen soldiers to always remember. Other companies from all across America are also helping to show these children and our fallen heroes' surviving spouses that they're not forgotten and that America cares. So yeah, you are useless Alec Baldwin, get your fat ass off my plane.

Question: Why does sand stick to wet feet, but not to dry feet? Answer: Although it might not seem like it, water is sticky in a peculiar way, even though it is a liquid. Water has surface tension that tries to pull isolated small drops of water (like rain or fog) into the shape of a ball. Sort of like a balloon that you fill with water. Surface tension is like the balloon itself. Most liquids have surface tension. If the water "wets" a surface then the water sticks to that material too. A tiny amount of water wets a sand grain and also wets your skin, and the surface tension of that small amount of water keeps the sand stuck to you. The surface tension is not large enough to have large pebbles stick to you. Sometimes scientists call this effect capillary attraction. Surface tension only present when there is a water-air interface. So sand under the water does not stick to you because there is no air/water interface to allow the surface tension to exist. If your feet are just a little bit wet, then the capillary effects can be noticed and your foot might have high friction. Wet clothing is very difficult to remove, especially socks. Socks need to slide off your feet and wet fabric makes thousands of small capillary bridges to your skin and doesnt slide well.

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the internet, in the name of protecting "creativity". The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites -- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement." Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW!

Country music legend and Air Force veteran Willie Nelson introduces his great friend Kris Kristofferson who makes an emotional speech accepting the Veteran Of The Year Award. Also relevant. Also creepy.

Kim Jong-il, birth name Yuri Irsenovich Kim according to Soviet records, was the supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, the ruling party since 1948, Chairman of the National Defence Commission of North Korea, and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, the fourth-largest standing army in the world. In April 2009, North Korea's constitution was amended to refer to him implicitly as the "Supreme Leader". He was also referred to as the "Dear Leader", "our Father", "the General" and "Generalissimo". His son Kim Jong-un was promoted to a senior position in the ruling Workers' Party and is heir apparent. In 2010, he was ranked 31st in Forbes Magazine's List of The World's Most Powerful People. The North Korean government announced his death on 19 December 2011.

Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin: natrium) and atomic number 11. It is an abundant element that exists in numerous minerals, most commonly as sodium chloride. Many salts of sodium are highly soluble in water and are thus present in significant quantities in the Earth's bodies of water. Sodium metal is highly reducing, with the reduction of sodium ions requiring ?2.71 volts; other alkali metals have more negative potentials. Hence, the extraction of sodium metal from its compounds (such as with sodium chloride) uses a significant amount of energy. In terms of handling properties, sodium is generally less reactive than potassium and more reactive than lithium. Like all the alkali metals, it reacts exothermically with water, to the point that sufficiently large pieces melt to a sphere and then explode; this reaction produces caustic sodium hydroxide and flammable hydrogen gas. When burned in dry air, it mainly forms sodium peroxide as well as some sodium oxide. In moist air, sodium hydroxide results.

It's actually amazing how much our civil liberties have been eroded within the last year. The Patriot Act has given way to the National Defense Authorization Act, which is potentially giving way to the Stop Online Piracy Act. Coming soon, to a Main Street near you? Ait wasn't too long ago when I'd have said no fucking way, but the way events are unfolding, I'm not so sure anymore. Man shit like this really pisses me off. Somoene needs to track down that Sam Hall and really rip him a new asshole.

Well, it's that time of the year again, so you know what that means. Yep, it's time for our annual Don't Shoot Your Eye Out game challenge! As a reminder. There are a few sweet spots that you can get some KICK ASS scores, but as you approach 10,000,000 -- the score rolls over. So get as close to 9,999,999 as you can without shooting your eye out.

Current standings for Don't Shoot Your Eye Out -- Current leader is Paul with 9,857,539, followed cloesly -- very closely -- by Steve with 9,848,110. Remember your points roll over to 0 at 10,000,000 points, so 9,999,999 is the Holy Grail. And now, on to every "educational" Christmas picture i could get my grubby little hands on...